Digital Scholarship team gives blind students unique senior portraits

[Video: A student at the Indiana School for the Blind is having his face scanned by an IUPUI University Library staff member. The student is sitting in a chair, wearing a green graduation gown. The staff member is walking around him with a bright light that is scanning his face. She watches a computer screen to make sure the scanner is working properly.]

Derek Miller, a 3D project coordinator at University Library, speaks in voiceover: Today, we are at the Indiana School for the Blind, and basically, we are 3D-scanning faces.

[Video: A close-up of the scanner being used, now on a female student.]

Jenny Johnson, the head of digitization services at University Library, speaks in voiceover: We use Creaform's ghost scans ...

[Video: Johnson appears on camera.]

[Words appear: Jenny Johnson, head of digitization services, University Library]

Johnson speaks: ... and it is a structured white-light scanner.

[Video: An IUPUI staff member scans the female student's face. The back of the student can be seen while the staff member walks around her; other people in green graduation caps and gowns are seen getting ready for their turn. Later, a close-up of the computer generating the scan is shown. A digital face slowly appears on the computer screen.

Johnson speaks in voiceover: And what it does is -- it takes about 1,000 photographs per second, and it actually builds ...

[Video: Johnson appears on camera.]

Johnson speaks: ... the geometry, so the level of accuracy is really, really high.

[Video: Miller scans a student's face. He is slowly walking around the student as the scanner detects her face.]

[Video: A close-up of the scanner being used. Later, a close-up of the computer generating the scan is shown. A digital face slowly appears on the computer screen.]

Miller speaks in voiceover: ... that way they can have a custom 3D print of their own face. As this technology becomes more and more popular, people can, for example, let's say you took a kindergartner who is blind, scanned them from kindergarten, all the way up to when they graduate ...

[Video: Miller appears on camera.]

Miller speaks: ... they now have a whole timeline yearbook of where they can go back and actually feel ...

[Video: A student at the Indiana School for the Blind is having her face scanned by an IUPUI University Library staff member. The student is sitting in a chair, wearing a green graduation gown. The staff member is walking around her with a bright light that is scanning her face.]

Miller speaks in voiceover: ... and then basically see themselves grow.

[Screen goes to black]

[IU trident appears]

[Words appear: IUPUI]

[Words appear: Fulfilling the promise]

[Words appear: iupui.edu]

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

IUPUI staff made 3D scans of blind high school students to create unique senior pictures for them.

Two queues occupied the cafeteria space inside the historic school: one for the traditional still-portrait photographer and another for a team from the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Scholarship manning two 3D-scanning stations. Most of the students sat down for both.

The scanning took only about a minute for each student. The digital composites will be sent to the school's records as well as to the students, who can then 3D-print the scan.

Emma Parker, a biomedical engineering sophomore and 3D digital assistant for the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Scholarship, does a 3D scan of Kurt Stickradt, a senior at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.Photos by Tim Brouk, Indiana University

"We hope this becomes a new tradition for us," said school superintendent Jim Durst. "A picture is worth a thousand words, and an object is worth a thousand pictures. Our kids can have access to information through 3D printing, but this really personalizes it at a level we hadn't thought of or anticipated."

The technicians used Creaform portable 3D scanners, which take about 1,000 digital photographs per second. The software stitches the images together to create a surface in staggering detail. The 3D scans can sharpen the details of a face -- or any object -- to a tenth of a millimeter.

Steve Mannheimer, professor of media arts and science, had worked with the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired for years as part of assistive, accessible and inclusive technology research with the Department of Human-Centered Computing. He met with Durst to plan the April 16 scanning session.

Decades of two-dimensional class photos line the school's halls, but many of the students can't see them. The goal of the class of 2019's 3D scans is for that to change.

"One research question is, 'Will the students recognize themselves?'" Mannheimer said. "Thanks to digital technology, we can provide tactual, acoustic, gestural opportunities to say, 'How will this help somebody who may be differently abled to better interact with the world?'"

Durst was excited about what the 3D scanning will lead his students to.

"In the future, when they come back years from now with their children and grandchildren," he said, "they can say, 'Here's my picture. This is what I look like,' without depending on somebody else to find their picture."

Visually impaired students had the option of keeping their eyes closed, as the handheld scanners emit bright lights while scanning. No sound is emitted during the process as the technician holds the scanner about an arm's length from the subject.

View print quality imageDerek Miller, 3D project coordinator for the University Library Center for Digital Scholarship, scans a graduating senior at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The student will be able to send the file to a 3D printer.Photo by Tim Brouk, Indiana University

"It's like a projector that slides across a surface's mountains and valleys," said Derek Miller, 3D project coordinator. "We can also capture color and texture of materials."

Inspired by a few other assistive technology initiatives, Miller hopes to offer scanning services to the school again -- not only to the graduating class, but for every class. From kindergarten to senior year, blind students will be able to realize their physical growth from their 3D-scanned portraits.

"It's going to allow them to feel themselves tactilely," Miller said. "Someday, hopefully, we'll be able to scan a blind student at the age of 5 and then scan them every year. In theory, we could build a timeline of them growing that they can actually feel."

Senior Cassondra Ernstes was one of the first students to get scanned. She was thrilled to be among the first class to have such unique senior pictures.